The Impression Campaign: Driving Diversity in Communications Begins with Recruitment
The communications industry has always been home to brilliant thinkers, challengers and disrupters. We celebrate those different thinkers among us. However, as a collective, have we done enough to encourage those challengers, disrupters and brilliant thinkers who may not look like the industry at large? Have we done enough to encourage and seek out diversity? Have we been open and transparent about the lack of individuals from racialized groups in our ranks? 52 per cent of residents in the GTA alone - home to many agencies - identify as a visible minority. And yet, diversity and representation in the communications field is nowhere near 50 per cent.
As the past year has progressed, we have seen many actions to help support our racialized colleagues within the communications and marketing community, yet we believe there is an important aspect still overlooked - recruitment. We will never have more diversity in communications - PR specifically - unless we actively recruit those celebrated, different thinkers from across racialized communities.
It’s why this week, we have partnered with Humber College and Code Black Communicator Network to launch The Impression Campaign, a scholarship focused on both recruitment and retention of racialized students in the public relations program. Why both? Because the challenges facing students even considering a career in communications need to be addressed, in addition to providing assistance to those students who are already within the program.
We believe that support needs to start before students even enter the program. By demonstrating to racialized high school students that a career in public relations is not only achievable but also supported, we will help to bring in a new, more diverse generation of communicators.
This campaign is not about Agnostic. The Impression Campaign is a mission, one that we are calling on all public relations agencies and communications teams across Canada to embrace. I’m thrilled that a number of our fellow industry colleagues have joined the mission:
The monetary support to aid in the success of this initiative is the equivalent of one award show entry or purchasing a table at one event that can, in reality, help change the course of a student’s future.
It’s the actions that we take now that will shape the future of communications in this country. We can, as a collective industry, come together to help build a new future for the profession. To learn more about The Impression Campaign, join us or contribute please visit https://humber.ca/advancementandalumni/impressioncampaign.
